Ambassador Freeman was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1993-94, earning the highest public service awards of the Department of Defense for his roles in designing a NATO-centered post-Cold War European security system and in reestablishing defense and military relations with China. He served as U. S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm). He was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the historic U.S. mediation of Namibian independence from South Africa and Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola.

Chas. Freeman served as Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d'Affaires in the American embassies at both Bangkok (1984-1986) and Beijing (1981-1984). He was Director for Chinese Affairs at the U.S. Department of State from 1979-1981. He was the principal American interpreter during the late President Nixon's path-breaking visit to China in 1972. In addition to his Middle Eastern, African, East Asian and European diplomatic experience, he served in India.

Contributions

Can American leadership be restored?COMMENTARY | July 27, 2007Iconoclastic former ambassador Chas Freeman writes that our undefined, seemingly endless 'war on terror' needs to be reassessed from top to bottom.

Public diplomacy in a time of cholerCOMMENTARY | October 20, 2006Chas Freeman, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, writes that we have lost international support not because foreigners hate our values but because they believe we are repudiating them and behaving contrary to them. 'If we can rediscover and reaffirm the identity and values that made our republic so great, we will find much support abroad, including among those in the Muslim world we now wrongly dismiss as enemies rather than friends.'